Things Are Better If I Stay
by Kyuzzang
Summary: After everything, Harry decides that he needs to start over somewhere new. Little does he know that Forks holds many dark and inescapable secrets that he is elaborately entangled with. Forks certainly doesn't offer the fresh start Harry had expected, but when have things ever gone according to plan for Harry? Harry/Jacob (explicit on LJ only), warnings inside.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: Insert stereotypical I do not own because obviously I don't own anything (that would be J.K Rowling and Stephanie Meyer sigh)._

_Author's note: Lets get warnings out of the way, shall we?_

_SLASH! However, it will be non-explicit on fanfiction dot net and anything explicit will not be plot-critical and will be put up on my Livejournal for y'all to read if you want to._

_Violence! Not a lot though. A bit of injury too because it usually accompanies violence._

_Swearing! Maybe. This is just a preemptive warning though I suppose._

_Bad writing! Yup. Enjoy that._

_Onto the story!_

* * *

The chains clinked, echoed around the large room and then died off to a quieter, continuous rattle, powered by a dull tremor that had started up. One pure white glistening hand, almost gloved in it's immaculate appearance reached out and the chains rattled violently as their entrapment struggled away from the appendage.

Eyes jaded, yet sparkling with the slightest glimmer of defiance amidst resounding resignation stared up as the porcelain hand wrenched his head back. The eyes twitched, closed briefly in pain as he tried to struggle further away from the offending head at his neck. It was hopeless, though, and the chains gave one final rattle before consciousness became too hard to maintain.

The vision faded out of focus until no details were distinctly visible anymore. Alice was hyper-aware of the frown lines on her forehead as she pondered what she'd just witnessed. What had she just seen? She had already begun to turn towards Edward before she gave it much thought and when she glanced up at him, he held the same confused expression that she did.

"Alice," he began uncertainly, a flicker of worry on his face (which really should have been Alice's first indication that this vision was serious), "what was that?"

Bella turned from the window, her gaze shifting from Seth and Renesmee to Alice and Edward."What was what?"

Edward, though, hadn't broken eye contact with Alice, and Alice had yet to make any motion to try and explain or give meaning to what she'd just observed.

"I ... I'm not sure-" she broke off as another vision flooded her senses, clouding her mind. It was of the same man. This time, though, he was standing out the front of their house, Renesmee shoved behind his legs as what blurrily appeared to be vampires prowled towards them, eyes a glowing red. She couldn't see further than that, however, because the image began to distort itself. It felt like she'd driven into a tunnel and her reception had been cut off, or like a storm had hit her antenna and left static in it's wake.

"I - that's," she began a few moments later, "that's never happened before."

"What happened?"

It was Rosalie, then, making her way over to them all. She quickly registered the tension in the room, and with frighteningly practiced ease, her eyes came to a rest on Alice and realisation dawned.

There wasn't any hesitation nor pause between that one significant look and Carlisle's name leaving her lips.

_o.o.o.o_

Their plane landed with a loud rattle; Harry, unused to the feeling of flying, braced his arms tightly on the seats, his eyes clenched shut, his knuckles turning white. Teddy glanced around happily from the seat beside him, his blue eyes wide with innocent, 5-year-old wonder.

"Harry," Teddy called softly, before repeating it, firmer this time, "Harry."

Harry snapped his eyes open, thankful that the plane had come to more-or-less of a complete stop, and turned to face his godson, an unconvincing smile of bravery plastered on his face.

"Can we get ice-cream when we got off the plane? My friends say that America has the _best_ ice-cream."

Smiling indulgently at him, Harry ruffled his hair. "We sure can. No - don't take your seatbelt off yet, Ted."

Teddy nodded, his hands wavering above the unclasp button, as they focused their attention towards the flight attendant directing them towards the exits, instructing them on how to retrieve their baggage once they were off the plane, and thanking them for flying with the airline.

"Now?" Teddy asked.

Harry nodded, "Now. Don't run off, Ted, stay with me. Merlin knows what I'm going to do if you run off in an airport this large."

Grinning, Teddy stepped out of the aisle, trying his best to reach up to the carry-on baggage compartments, pouting when his little arms couldn't quite reach.

"You haven't grown quite that much in the past day," Harry commented with a snort, pulling their bags out and passing the small, blue backpack to the boy. Teddy's pout increased as they stepped smoothly out of the plane exit and straight into the airport.

Harry took a moment to take in the sights and smells of the place. He was on foreign soil, in a land he'd never traveled to before, with only himself as a means of support. He'd have to support Teddy, aswell. It was easier when they were in Britain; Hermione and Ron had been at his place constantly, and he hardly ever had to make any sort of decision without their input.

Now, as he glanced around the bustling airport, Teddy's hand grasped in his own, trying to remember where exactly it was that the baggage was to be collected from, he had a sinking feeling of loneliness.

It was stupid, really. Teddy was right beside him, and Ron and Hermione were just a portkey, floo-call or apparation away. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling. Sighing, he knelt down and lifted Teddy up and onto his hip, feeling more secure with him right there. This way there was no chance of anything accidentally happening.

Teddy frowned confusedly at Harry for a moment, before shrugging, wrapping his arms around Harry's neck and squirming slightly so that he could peer directly over Harry's shoulder and around at the people behind them.

After much confusion, Harry managed to find the collection area, and was soon standing with a cart loaded with three suitcases, and an excited godson. It was kind of sad, that their entire lives managed to fit inside just three suitcases.

Shaking his head, he began heading over to the check-out area, praying that a car-hire service was somewhere nearby. He'd had half of his money converted at Gringotts into pounds, and then had half of that (a remarkably large amount) converted into USD. Hermione had helped him acquire an international credit-card (American explora, was it? No, no .. American express?) so he wasn't necessarily worried about paying for anything, as much as he was actually working out how to find the things he needed.

Forks was quite a long way out from Seattle airport, he thought dryly. It had only been recently that he'd learned how to drive a car too, let alone in the American on-the-right-whilst-sitting-on-the-left way. It was going to be quite an adjustment.

Teddy smacked his hands against the suitcases he was perched upon and as Harry pushed the trolley, he thought rather comically that if Teddy was an owl, this would almost definitely remind him of those many times he traveled through platform 9 and 3/4, ready for a new year at Hogwarts.

He swallowed past the lump in his throat, followed the signs that seemed to be more trouble than they were actually worth, and just prayed that they could live a relatively normal life in the quiet town of Forks.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's note: Wow I was so shocked with the amount of views and favourites! So I've decided to continue writing it all, which means regular updates. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, I came home after failing my maths test and they just made me smile :) I'll update as soon as the next chapter's edited, keep up the reviews! Reviews make me write faster._

_o.o.o.o_

The air was heavy, thick with cold and yet startlingly comforting as Harry wound the car window down with strained effort, careful not to wake a dozing Teddy with his ministrations.

He still hadn't really adjusted to the time-zone yet. It was to be expected - he'd only been on American soil for a few hours at most. Most of that time had been spent driving, too, made all the more difficult by his taxing fatigue that threatened to run them off the road at any given moment.

Harry wished he had a pepper-up potion. He'd not tasted any sort of potion in a long time, so it was slightly disconcerting to crave one. Coffee was probably the muggle equivalent to it (though Hermione had admantly sworn that tea was a much better option) and Harry vowed to put it to the test as soon as possible.

Hopefully, he thought, he wouldn't need to wait particularly long.

His cheeks strained, lips pulling taut into a wide grin of their own accord when he passed a sign that he was fairly certain meant his destination was only 5 miles away. Muggle road signs weren't exactly his forté though, nor were they at all easy to comprehend, so the sign could really have meant anything.

The knife and fork sign on the other hand were quite universal in their meaning of food. Harry thought that the prospect of food of any kind right then was rather more appealing for the present moment to dwell on.

He pondered the meaning of the elusive signage for a few minutes, then concluded that it _must_ have been expressing the nearing of Forks. The verdict made him equal parts nervous and excited. He and Teddy were going to be _home _- at least, what was meant to be considered their new home - in just a short amount of time. So close, in fact, that Harry felt as if he were to reach his hand out the open window, a tingle of kind greeting might ghost over his fingertips, tangible in it's sincerity.

Subsequently he couldn't help but think that they were also going to be completely and utterly alone. Of course the people there were going to be for the most part welcoming, if not _accommodating_ in the very least. And Harry had no doubt in his mind that eventually they were both going to grow accustomed to the small town, the residents and the inherently new way of living.

And really, Harry believed that after everything that had happened in his life, the prospect of change and uncertainty really shouldn't have been _that_ nerve-wracking. His first day of Hogwarts was singularly the most exciting day of his life and he couldn't recall feeling even an ounce of unease or anxiety that particular day.

He rationalised that he was probably more jaded and cynical in the present, though he liked to believe that Teddy sparked - however minutely - a small amount of innocence and childhood wonder in him. Harry had already lived through a lot though, and his experiences had certainly taken a toll on him.

Perhaps his irresolution and skepticism about the people around him was a repercussion of the last decade of his life. And, as he flicked the indicator on and glanced in the rear-view mirrors at the bleak road for a sign of a car that he knew probably wasn't going to be there - a vague sense of exactly who he really was.

He swallowed dryly as he processed that and wondered exactly when it was that he became so introspective and, dare he say it, _philosophical_. Then decided it was probably a by-product of staring death in the face with the support of loved ones and coming out the other side of it all with a much lower head-count.

Teddy stirred in the back seat with a small groan, dragged Harry away from his musings just in time to realise that he'd already hit the town and had missed getting a good look at it for the first time. The sigh that escaped was impossible to stop and rattled his bones with it's intensity, relaying to his own mind exactly how tired he was.

His fingers were harsh against the touch-screen of his GPS as he typed the name of the real-estate office in - Hermione had insisted he get one before leaving, though he would never admit to her that he actually did need it, the discarded map on the passenger seat only serving to reinforce his ineptitude with directions - and replaced it onto the dashboard when it's incessant beeping signaled the registration of the location he desired.

The GPS was cold and robotic, and certainly did nothing to ease his growing apprehension (if anything, the monotone frazzled his nerves more). He followed the given directions carefully, though he payed more attention to the buildings than the actual road, and eventually found himself out the front of an average looking building. The whole shop front was glass windows that may have once provided an insight into the contents of the offices, but now simply displayed houses and units that were up for sale and rent. They'd been crudely blue-tacked to the glass, frayed and faded, but Harry still stopped to peer closely at them before entering.

Teddy was a dead weight in his arms, supported only by Harry's sheer power of will (because really, Teddy had become far too big for Harry to hold for lengthy periods of time).

He elbowed the door open carelessly, scanned the room for the woman he had spoken on the phone with numerous times, and let his eyes come to a rest on a short, plump woman. Her hair was pulled back tightly into a bun, her makeup immaculate, and yet there was a small smudge of lipstick on her teeth. Harry wasn't sure why exactly, but that one small detail made him feel more comfortable. It made the woman seem more human, he thought, which was a nice change from the people he'd recently come into contact with.

"You must be Harry." She chorused, mindful of the sleeping boy in his arms. Her smile was warm, Harry hadn't the heart to tell her of her teeth predicament. It gave her personality, he thought. Her hair was too sleek and her makeup was too neat and tidy. That one smudge of bright red lipstick was like a shining beacon of humanity in a sea of artificiality.

Harry carefully juggled Teddy around (the boy was such a heavy sleeper that nothing short of an air-raid or Mrs. Weasley's screeching could wake him) and stretched a hand forward politely.

"I'm Elizabeth Bourne."

"Nice to finally meet you in person." He gave her hand a firm shake, mused that her grip was rather strong for that of a woman's and belied her outwardly feminine appearance.

"How was the flight over? It would've been a bit long, I'd imagine." She chuckled good-naturedly.

"It was rather bumpy," he grimaced, "and lacking any form of nutritious food at all."

A shining look of understand overcame her and she nodded enthusiastically in understanding. "Well I'd better get your keys for you so you can get some rest and food. Do you want to fill out all of the paperwork now? Or if you want I can swing by the house and you can fill them out after you've had a night's sleep."

He bit his lip to stop from jumping at the question, reminded himself that patience should have been one of his virtues. Perhaps he could make room for that virtue by removing the idiotically heroic virtue he seemed to be eternally_ stuck_ with.

"Are you sure? I don't want to trouble you-"

"Nonsense!" She shook her head and made an expressive gesture with her hands. "It is hardly any trouble at all. It gives me an opportunity to see the house. I haven't laid eyes on it since it's inspection a month or so ago. What time would you like me to come over?"

"Any time that you're comfortable with." He hastened to say.

She considered his words for a moment. "How about late morning?"

A nod from Harry before she slipped past him and over to her desk to retrieve his keys. They rattled together quietly, sent a tingle of exhilaration through his spine at how _real_ the whole process was finally becoming. They were so _close_.

"Now this big gold key here is for the main door," she began, "this silver one is for the back door, this small gold one is a master-key for all of the inside locks, and this bronze one is for the garage."

He accepted them gratefully and thanked her warmly. "Thank you so much for everything. I'll see you tomorrow then? You have my number in case you can't make it-"

"Of course, of course. Now go! You look like death walking." She joked. Harry's laugh held only traces of emotions - hollow fatigue and a slight crinkling of his eyes from the building excitement at seeing their new home, but Elizabeth seemed content enough with his reaction and waved him off happily.

The skies were still overcast when he left the small office, though there were a few odd beams of sunlight dripping through them. The streets were a bit busier than when he entered; school, he realised, must have just ended because there were large groups of students wandering the streets, their laughter punctuated by animated chatter and loud movements as they traipsed past shops.

Distracted as he was, he didn't notice the admittedly large pot-hole in the ground until his foot was wedged well and truly inside of it. Teddy awoke with a fright in his arms, his body going rigid as Harry all but fell forwards, gingerly placing Teddy on his feet on the side-walk. He swore under his breath, out of auditory range of Teddy and twisted around to find his fallen keys.

There, in front of his face, was a hand, his keys perched haphazardly on a palm.

"You must be new around here."

Harry, upon focusing on the face rather than comically glancing between the hand and the keys, realised a beat too late that this was the sheriff he was talking to.

"I'm Charlie Swan, the Sheriff around here. Gotta watch these pot-holes, they'll injure you pretty badly if you aren't paying attention."

Harry nodded, unsure of how to respond. How _was_ he supposed to respond.

"I'm Harry," he finally decided on, "this is Teddy. We just moved here from England." He gratefully took the keys from Charlie and pocketed them.

Charlie tipped his hat at them both. "If y'all need anything at all, just give me a call. I'll sort out any problems you've got."

Harry beamed at the kindness. Here it was, his first taste of small town life, where everybody knew everybody and everyone _cared_ about each other. Small towns were like little spider webs; intricately woven, strongly secured, and each string of silk affected every other string when disturbed._  
_

"Well don't let me hold you up." Charlie said through the silence hanging in the air between them. Internally Harry chastised himself for making the situation such an awkward one via his lack of responses. Nothing to do about it now, he thought dismally.

"I'll see you around, Mr. Swan-"

"Bye Mr. Officer!" Teddy excitedly shouted.

Charlie smirked at Teddy. His eyes seemed sad though. Harry wasn't sure if it was parental intuition or just his own imagination, but he was certain that in Charlie Swan's eyes, there was a glimmer of ... longing? Regret? Anguish? However as soon as it was there, it was gone.

Harry drove silently, his GPS interrupting his train of thought before he could string together anything coherent. Eventually he just focused on driving, focused on getting home as soon as was humanly possible.

To his home.

Their home.

Their new lives.

The prospect of exactly what that entailed frightened Harry, he was willing to admit that much, but within the uncertainty he found lingering excitement. Like the very first day of Hogwarts, Harry was certain with every fiber of his being that this - coming to Forks (or rather, leaving the U.K) would change absolutely everything and would almost definitely shape his and Teddy's entire future.

Harry was by no means sheltered, and yet, this move fully entailed just how sheltered he had really been. It was odd to think about; he'd nearly been murdered at least once every year since he was 11, yet he lacked a reasonable knowledge of the actual world outside of his own life.

Worried as he was, Harry couldn't help but feel a tingle of exhilaration as he drove on towards his new life, disregarding his ever-present apathy for the time being to embrace this new development and anything else that was thrown his way.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's note: Yay a new chapter! This chapter was actually really difficult for me to write. I dunno if anyone got it from the last chapter, but I tend to avoid dialogue. I suck at dialogue. You'll probably all see that from this chapter. I re-edited it a billion times to make it flow more or seem more natural but I still don't think it does. It's still awkward. I hate it. But what can you do? Rest assured, all dialogue following this chapter will be much better because I have it planned muahaha. Anyway, thanks to everyone who reviewed and followed and just read my story! I hope y'all like the (much longer) new chapter._

_o.o.o.o_

Of all the places to end up, Harry wasn't really sure why he picked Forks. The weather had been a contributing factor to the final decision, he knew that much. How the small town, so unobtrusive and _random_ managed to weave it's way into his mind and manifest itself on a map one night as he lay in Sirius' old bedroom, travel brochures spread haphazardly before him, Harry will never know.

Really, when he thought about it, Forks wasn't even the type of he place he would even _consider_ coming to - nor is America altogether. Prior to Forks, Harry envisioned glistening Italian rivers, French architecture - maybe even sunny Spanish beaches.

How they came to be in America, in the middle of a town so small and sequestered and yet remarkably _familiar_ in it's inherent unfamiliarity would forever remain a mystery.

Harry liked to think that fate brought them here but after everything, he found that he was unable to delude himself into believing that things like _fate _and _destiny_ existed anymore.

Teddy helped him ignore his incessant despondency with his toothy smiles and his strange knack for finding wonder in anything and everything. The current object of his curiosity, for instance, was the small snail languidly trailing across the knee of Harry's jeans. Harry watched with a modicum of regard as the small creature poked a green, almost translucent head from underneath it's shell, it's eye-stalks oustretched to peer critically at Harry (and Harry kind of felt bad because it looked like it was struggling against the rough material of his jeans),

Teddy squealed when Claire half-jumped onto his back and ordered him to "Carry the pwincess!"

Harry carefully plucked the snail from his jeans and attached it to the underside of the park bench, glanced worriedly at the two children when they both squealed in unison. They were high pitched and loud together, but Teddy seemed to have found companionship within Claire in the hour they'd known each other for.

Claire had come with what appeared to be her parents; they were sitting off to the other edge of the considerable park. Harry couldn't really make them out too well but he thought they might have been having a picnic - the weather that day was nice enough, the sun shined dimly through the overcast clouds, the breeze cool and refreshing.

Harry was content to just sit alone on the bench and relax for as long as he could while Teddy expended his boundless energy. He slumped against the bench, confident in Teddy's safety, and let the breeze lull him into a sort of doze, caught halfway between unconsciousness and consciousness where he was sort of paying attention to his surroundings and sort of not. He felt some of the bone-deep exhaustion begin to seep away, worn deep through the lack of sleep and strenuous shopping the last two days had entailed.

Teddy had adjusted amicably to the change in terrain and time-zone, though the same could not be said about Harry. Where Teddy had been able to sleep soundly the past two nights, Harry had been unable to do much but toss-and-turn and count the grooves along the skirting boards.

The insomnia gave him time to think, though. It was probably stupid, trying to find something good in something that could only be intrinsically bad, but Harry couldn't help it - the lack of sleep was equally as beneficial as it was harmful.

Those nights, when all he could hear were the foundations of the house creaking, the wind whistling through the cracks in the roof, the scuttling of the trees as they scraped against the walls, gave him time to fully process everything.

Despite himself, he was beginning to look forward to the nighttime, when he could dissect the confusing mess of memories and reassemble them in a way that actually made sense. 5 years was a long time to go without properly contemplating life-altering events, but what else could Harry really do about it now?

He _was_ looking forward to getting a good night of rest soon, though, hoped it wasn't an entirely inconceivable future for him - to actually sleep. His eyes were red and bloodshot and his skin had an oddly pale pallor to it, giving a sickly appearance.

He cracked an eye open when he noticed that he hadn't heard a squeal or laughter or _anything_ for a few minutes. Having raised Teddy, Harry was pretty used to constant loud _noise_ and rambunctious behaviour, so silence was _almost_ and indication that something was wrong.

Claire wasn't there either, though, so Harry had a pretty fair indication of where they both had gone off to. His predictions were proven correct when he stood and headed over to where Claire's parents had been, to find they had a new edition - Teddy, with his mop of brown hair and his too-bright blue eyes.

"Harry!" the little boy excitedly shouted, a juice-box in his hand, when Harry made his way over to the group, "Emily gave me a juice box! It's got a straw on the side and you just squish into this little metal hole!"

Apparently Teddy had found more than just companionship in Claire, but in her parents as well - though her father looked to be asleep, well and truly unaware.

He was nervous to be meeting new people, especially looking as crappy as he did, but at the same time he was anxious to interact. Teddy was great he conceded, but Harry craved a bit of flavour; talking about ice cream and it's 'yumminess' for two hours was great, but he was eager to explore the more meaningful roots of conversational topics.

Teddy pulled the straw out of his juice-box, splashed half of it down the front of him and then crammed it back into the small hole, a reenactment for Harry of just how amazing the boxed-juice really was.

"I hope you don't mind," Harry shifted his attention to the owner of the voice, "Claire's pretty intrigued with your son."

Harry was ashamed of the few seconds he hesitated to respond as he carefully processed the deep scars on the woman's face - he could only assume she was Emily - so reminiscent of Bill's own scars that he had to pause to process every detail of them and reassure himself that this wasn't Bill he was talking to.

Though the distinct lack of red hair and pale, freckled skin helped him to establish this.

"Not at all," he said with a deep intake of breath and a too-bright smile to try and cover his undeniable ogling. The scars didn't bother him - he'd lived through a _war, _seen the very worst humanity (if it could even be called that) had to offer. They just captivated him. He wanted to ask how she had gotten them but _knew_ it was a rude question, "the more sugar, the merrier."

He was rewarded with a laugh, indication that either Emily hadn't noticed his gawking or she had decided to ignore it. He concluded it was probably the latter - people probably stared at her a lot.

"Would you like to join us?"

Harry glanced down at the rough looking picnic mat, well-worn, red checkers faded and bleeding into the white checkers so that it was difficult to place exactly where one square ended and another began.

"I don't want to impose on you," Harry said with a shake of his head, winced when Teddy and Claire squealed excitedly in the distance on the sea-saw as Teddy made a particularly hard jump and Claire lifted a few inches off the seat.

"I insist. Come on, sit- would you like a sandwich?"

He smiled despite himself and accepted the invitation, and the sandwich passed his way.

"Oh, right," Emily said a moment later with a small shake of her head, her silky black hair falling into her eyes with the motion, "I'm Emily."

"I'm Harry," he introduced out of pure reciprocity; he was fairly certain Emily had already learned his name via Teddy, but it was only polite.

"This is Sam," she nudged the very large, very asleep man in the ribs. Sam peaked out through one eye at Emily, threw an arm across her lap and then presumably resumed sleeping, if the quiet was any indication.

"Sorry about him," she apologized sincerely, "he's ... he hasn't been sleeping well lately."

"No, it's fine," Harry waved it off and took another bite out of his sandwich, "is Claire your daughter?"

"Niece," she explained, "but we're going to have a little one soon enough."

Harry frowned confusedly at the statement, then noticed the way Emily glanced down at her stomach and let her own hand rest on it, right above where Sam's hand protectively rested, and it clicked into place.

"Congratulations, how far along are you?"

She beamed at Harry, her eyes twinkling in the sun, a perfect mixture of hope and motherly glow. "22 weeks now. It's getting so close that I just can't believe it."

"Do you know the sex yet?"

"We want it to be a surprise."

Harry liked the idea of it being a surprise. He couldn't recall if Tonks and Remus found out the sex of Teddy before he was born yet, but he was pretty sure they didn't. They would've been too busy with everything that was happening for that.

"Have you only just moved in?"

"A few days ago, yeah. It's ... It's an adjustment," he said earnestly, fiddled with the corner of the picnic mat, pulled on a few fray strings as his knuckles brushed over the grass.

"Well we'd love to have you and Teddy over sometime - we can show you a bit around town. There's not much to see here but a lot of forest and beach, but it's a pretty nice forest and beach," Emily chuckled, then looked inquisitively at Harry as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "and your wife, too ...?"

Harry was prepared for the question - it was a pretty common one that he got asked. People either questioned where his wife was, where Teddy's mother was, or why Teddy called Harry by his name, rather than 'dad'. He didn't mind explaining it. At first, when his battle wounds were still fresh and open, he'd avoided any sort of interactions that may have led to the inquisition. He realised now though that he had nothing to be ashamed or worried about anymore, so he easily answered with a smile - if a dull and mildly withdrawn one.

"It's just the two of us, actually. Teddy's parents both died in an accident shortly after he was born. I'm his godfather."

Emily looked saddened by the news - she placed her hand more securely over her stomach and let her gaze glide over Teddy and Claire, still hyperactively chasing one another raucously.

"I _was_ wondering why he called you Harry. Does he know?"

"He doesn't really understand, but he knows that his parents aren't here anymore. I don't think I'm going to be able to explain it fully to him until he's a bit older. I dread the day that I have to explain it all," he said honestly. It was for a different reason that he was nervous though. Not because he needed to explain that Remus and Tonks were _dead_, but because he would have to tell Teddy about the circumstances surrounding their death.

Which meant retelling the war.

He knew he would need to do it before Teddy turned 11, too. Harry would never let Teddy go to Hogwarts without fully knowing his history there - Harry knew first hand what it was like to be surrounded by people who knew more about his personal life than he himself did.

"Sounds rough," Sam grunted from beside Emily, mildly startling them both as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, all tan skin and rippling muscles. He was shirtless, which seemed weird because it was like 20 degrees which, though not _cold_, wasn't exactly the type of weather that condoned partial nakedness.

Harry shrugged noncommittally, "I'm just going to be happy when we're all moved in and settled."

"Hey," Emily suddenly said, grabbing Harry's attention with the suddenness of her tone, "you should come to this party we're having tomorrow night."

"Emily," Sam growled quietly at her, almost inaudibly but Harry still managed to catch it and scratched his neck in response awkwardly.

"What? He should!" she complained, turned a glare on Sam that made the man visibly shrink (which in itself was funny to watch; he was pretty sure Sam was almost 7 foot and Emily was petite and _pregnant_), then turned back to Harry. "It's my cousin's birthday and we're throwing him a surprise party tomorrow night. You should definitely come and meet some people! Besides, I'm sure Claire's already invited Teddy. What do you say?"

Harry wanted to convey how exciting the prospect of a party was to him - especially when it would have involved meeting _more _new people, but Sam was glaring hard at the ground, his fists clenched so tightly that Harry was almost afraid to say it, felt compelled to lie.

"I - I don't know," he answered, voice hesitant. It was obvious that Sam didn't want him there; he wasn't sure why, perhaps he had done something to offend him. Maybe Sam didn't particularly like new people at an event that was probably supposed to be family centered.

"Haaaaarrrry!" Teddy called out, dragged Harry's focus away from the situation. He was glad that he had something else to focus his mind on, happy for the reprieve Teddy offered.

"Cwaire wants to pway with Teddy tomowwow," Claire pouted, her arms crossed over her chest as she came to a halt in front of Emily.

Emily's eyes darted about nervously, rested briefly on Sam, briefly on Harry and then came back to Claire, clearly her only safe resting position. Harry didn't miss the sudden smirk on Emily's lips though as she leant down slightly and said to Claire "I don't know if Teddy's allowed to come."

Claire puffed her cheeks out with a deep pout as she turned to Teddy, "But you hwave to come!"

To Harry's horror, Teddy reproduced the pout and twisted around to face Harry, his little lips stuck out and his arms crossed in an awkward kind of way over his chest. His left hand was at an odd angle, the boy obviously unsure of where to place it. Teddy was never really good with demanding or throwing tantrums in general. It was a bit of a shock to the system to be exposed to a Teddy-tantrum. Like the Ron-apology, Teddy-tantrum's were mythical in existence and startling in occurrence.

"Harry we can _go_,right?"

Harry wasn't ignorant - he knew when he'd been defeated. He never could say no to Teddy, and he found that he didn't really want to, not now at least. Emily was cunning, he'd give her that. Sam still proved to be problematic, his features were stern to the point of irritation, but Harry thought Emily would _probably_ have sorted him out by tomorrow night.

"Yeah," he found himself saying before he'd really considered the implications, "yeah, I think we can go. Only if you're good, though."

The last part was sort of irrelevant; Teddy was usually always good and Harry knew that even if Teddy _wasn't_ good they were still probably going to go.

"I'm _always_ good, Harry," Teddy said matter-of-factly, channeled Hermione with a deliberate roll of his eyes (or at least an attempt at an eye roll. It was more of a quick look up and a huff than an eye roll).

"Great!" Emily cheered excitedly, placed her hand in what appeared to be a calming manner over Sam's, "his name is Seth. He's turning 17. We've got just about the whole town coming anyway - or at least, we're cooking enough food for the whole town to eat."

Claire made a weird sort of raspberry noise and shuffled around behind Sam to try and climb onto him, shouted "Cwaire wants to pway horsey!" and kicked a leg over his shoulder. Sam struggled for a while, to their bemusement, before Claire was eventually seated on his shoulders. He stood, Claire secure, and started walking around despondently.

"No! _Horsey_! Quil gives Cwaire _best_ horsey ride!" Claire complained, fingers embedded into Sam's short hair, tugging harshly. Harry gave Sam a sympathetic glance as the man tried to carefully pluck her fingers from his hair whilst simultaneously entertaining her.

Teddy tugged on Harry's sleeve and when Harry turned, he was assaulted by large blue eyes and fidgeting.

"What's wrong?" he asked with a frown.

Teddy leant forward and carefully whispered, "I have to _go_."

Harry grimaced in understanding and made a move to stand. "We'd better get going, then. It was really nice to meet you both."

Emily didn't respond straight away; she hurriedly rifled through her bag for something, her movements frenzied, before she resurfaced with a small slip of paper and a pen. On it she wrote down an address, a phone-number and scribbled "Seth 17th party" onto it.

"It starts at 6 - Seth doesn't get home until half-past because he's working late. My numbers there if you need anything at all," she said as she handed the slip over. Harry folded it carefully and tucked it into his pocket as he straightened out his coat.

"Teddy, go say good-bye to Claire, okay?"

Teddy ran over to where Sam was kneeling on the ground, Claire perched atop his back, and pulled the little girl into an awkward hug. He then rushed back over to Harry, tugged on his sleeve again and said with more urgency this time, "I have to _go_."

Harry nodded, "Alright, alright. See you guys tomorrow night!" he waved to Sam, Emily and Claire as he and Teddy began the walk back home.

Later that night as Harry lay awake again, this time pondering for the umpteenth time the events of the department of mysteries, he let his mind wander to Emily and Sam. He still hadn't worked Sam out. It wasn't surprising - he had only met the man once and the meeting was only fleeting - but still worrying. He wanted to know why Sam had been so short with him and had _obviously_ disliked the idea of Harry coming to their party.

Despite that Harry was glad that he had decided to say yes. He probably would have regretted it if he had said no and _lost_ the opportunity he had been waiting for to meet new people. He was probably a tad bit pathetic in his yearning to meet people but it was hard to go from constantly being surrounded by everyone - Hermione, Ron, their multitude of children, siblings and parents - to being just Teddy and himself.

It wasn't as though he'd tossed aside his old family or anything - he was still close to them all, still had plans to visit them in fortnight's time for Hermione's birthday, but the decision to move all the way to Forks was partially because he wanted a fresh start, mostly because he couldn't bear to live with the reminder of the war every single day.

Molly, bless her, had this ever-present look in her eyes. He'd spent a long time trying to establish just what it was, and after five years of it, thought he'd managed to do so. Molly had lost Fred, her baby, and she was irreparably changed because of it. Harry didn't blame her; if anything were to happen to Teddy or, god forbid, he ever ... Harry couldn't even contemplate the thought.

And being constantly immersed in large group of people who all shared the same hollow look? It was torturous.

Harry didn't regret his decision to move out here, as lonely as it was for now. He knew that it would get better when he gained more friends, and he knew that he'd always have his friends back in Britain.

Harry just needed a fresh start, an escape from the constant reminders of war and _loss_. He also had a good feeling about tomorrow. Sam - Sam posed a potential problem, but for the most part, Harry thought that this was good for both he and Teddy. They both needed friends and this was like a shiny beacon of opportunity sent their way.

For the first time since moving to Forks, Harry managed to get a few solid hours of real _sleep_ that night.


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't like him."

It was a solitary statement, said into the almost-silence of the kitchen, punctuated by a hard stab of the wooden spoon into the hardened plastic of the mixing bowl. Emily looked over, regarded Sam for a moment as she added a dash of paprika to the saucepan she was stirring carefully over the stove. It gave a _plop_ and then started to separate, to her dismay.

"You don't _know_ him."

"I don't need to know him to know that there's something off about him."

They had been having the same conversation on and off since they'd met Harry, and it was beginning to grate on Emily's nerves. She wasn't sure _why_ he had such an issue with Harry coming to the party; every time she asked for a specific reason, he danced around his answer with elusive responses. It was like trying to draw blood from a _stone;_ a particularly _stubborn_ stone at that.

And Emily was getting _sick_ of the dancing back and forth. She wanted answers, and she had a pretty strong feeling that Sam didn't really have any answers to give.

"What exactly is _off _about him?"

Sam huffed and halted his ministrations, dumped the bowl of half-mixed cookie dough onto the bench and rounded on the couch. Emily looked at him, mildly shocked that _Sam_ was the one giving up with the cooking first out of the two of them. _Men and their one-track minds_. Cooking definitely couldn't be completed, not when there was perfectly time-consuming and _meaningless _affairs to be intensely considered.

"Did you see how bloodshot his eyes were?"

"He's only just moved here with a little kid. You'd be tired too," Emily snorted. Heck, just taking care of Claire _overnight_ had made them both snappy and tired when they'd done it, and there were _two of them_ to handle the stress. Granted Claire liked to tug on the bed sheets and whine "_Emiwyyy_" until they had no other choice but to get out of bed. Still, single parenthood sounded like a daunting task and Emily wasn't prepared to underestimate the amount of effort that went in to it.

"Like he was _tweaking_ or something," Sam continued with a shake of his head, shoved his dark fringe out of his eyes.

Now Emily _knew_ Sam was scraping the bottom of the barrel. She decided that Sam really didn't deserve all of her attention, not when he was going to behave like a two year old. It was silly of her, really, to expect a legitimate reason - to think that Sam had anything less than fantastical and _fictional _reasons for his mistrust and wariness. Emily was adamant that Harry was a good person, and she would just need to make sure that Sam was able to fully see that particular observation as soon as possible. Preferably tonight but she wasn't holding out hope for a _miracle_ like that to happen.

Honestly, she was just praying that they had enough food. That really _would_ be a miracle because teenage boys seemed to have a bottomless pit for a stomach. Emily found it rather amusing that they couldn't remember to do their homework on time but were able to accurately remind themselves that copious amounts of food needed to be eaten every hour on the hour.

"And did you see the way his hands shook?"

She shifted her attention back to Sam, gave him a glare that held no real conviction - Emily could never _really_ be mad at Sam. For as much as he was being irritating, complaining incessantly because he didn't immediately get his way for something, she had an inkling that it had less to do with Harry and more the prospect of building relationships with people who weren't involved in everything that had happened that past year.

"His hands did not shake," she said sternly, "how could you have noticed, anyway? You were asleep half the conversation."

"Yeah, well, I was awake for long enough."

Sam wasn't going to get up again and help her anytime soon, either. Not when Harry needed to be pondered so carefully. The bowl of cookie dough was going to have to be mixed by her, she was certain.

"Will you just give it a rest and start decorating please? People are going to start arriving soon and I would like to have the house _mostly_ ready for them all."

Sam did as he was told, to Emily's surprise, and headed out to the back room where all of the decorations were kept. Emily watched with a grin as Sam hauled the plethora of decorative banners, balloons and streamers, all in shockingly bright colours, around the house.

Emily would need to keep a close eye on Sam tonight, lest the man frighten off seemingly the only person unaffiliated with what had happened in the past year that she had met in this small town in quite a while. Harry felt like a breath of fresh air - like a _real _sign that they were passed everything that had happened, that they had come out of it all on the other side and were _okay_.

Emily determinedly drew her brows together, nodded to herself and danced about the kitchen with renewed vigor, herbs and spices clattering together as she collected them all in her hands.

* * *

_Author's note: Guys I suck! It's been like a month since I last updated and it's a pathetic update at that! But I have exams soon, you see, and my free-time has been spent making copious amount of flashcards and cramming as much information as possible into my brain. Worse still, my exams don't finish for another two months! However I do have most of the next chapter (that in all honesty was meant to be part of this chapter but I felt bad for not posting in forever!) written and will hopefully upload it soon. _

**_Also thankyou thankyou thankyou to everyone who reviewed! _**

_ Elfin69: About Teddy not being recognized by the others as being a wolf - I had hoped to clear this up in a later chapter but I guess now is as good a time as any! Remus' lycanthropy cannot be passed on to children, and as Teddy has not been attacked by a lycanthrope of sorts since he was born, he has no connection to it other than being related to a werewolf! Hence Teddy is not a werewolf nor does he have any traits that might be related to lycanthropy (e.g Bill's desire for red meat or something along those lines). Hope that clears it up a bit._

_Anyway, sorry y'all for the pathetic update! Reviews are totally appreciated and might even make me write faster - who knows? _


	5. Chapter 5

It was a half hour into the party when Harry decided that meeting new people wasn't actually as enthralling as he had initially imagined. The idea that it would be a fun experience had originally grown from his _previous _experiences because _nothing_ could've been as exceptionally uncomfortable as the post-war parties.

_Those _were full of awkward speeches, too-loud laughter and spectacular displays of emotional outbursts in the form of big, splotchy tears all over the chafing shoulders of his rental suits.

Seth's party obviously wasn't quite as excruciating but Harry would definitely rank it high on the list of moments he would rather not relive. Equally as high on that list was Lavender Brown's funeral (one of the first funerals that Harry had attended after the war had ended). Ron had come with Harry for moral support (or, as Ron had explained, "Even if she crossed her fingers that I'd apparate and land missing an arm or something, she still came to see me when I almost died. I want to thank her for caring about me despite what a git I was to her.").

Harry had tried, really _tried_ to remain a passive presence at the back of the funeral, but Ron had nudged him in the ribs halfway through the wake and said "Those are her parents I think. You should offer condolences or something ... It's polite?"

Politeness aside, it had been one of the _worst _experiences of his life. As soon as he'd opened his mouth and offered any sort of sympathy to them, people around him started exploding into tears - loud, slobbery tears - and the proceeding speech forced upon him was almost as hideously uncoordinated as Ron trying to order pizza over the phone.

Suffice to say, Harry hated public speaking almost as much as he was beginning to realise he hated meeting new people.

Harry was pretty sure that most of the party guests were family, too, which inspired a whole new level of awkwardness. Emily had introduced him to most of them - the only reason he could still remember their names so far, though, was because he hadn't met _everyone_ yet. There was still a few odd people and a large group in the back of the spacious lounge that he'd yet to even get close to.

Admittedly being around people who weren't sickeningly _aware_ of his whole life was a nice change from all the other parties he'd ever attended. It was still shaping up to be an incredibly uncomfortable event, though. The culture gap didn't help, either. Sometimes he wasn't even sure what they were saying, their words either too fast and heavily accented, or _confusing_ to understand.

They were all really nice people, though. So incredibly nice, in fact, that Harry was beginning to think that he could overlook the awkwardness and _try_ and remain as social as possible. He'd already met mostly everyone there, and though the meetings were fleeting and introductory, with every new spoken word, the inadequacy he was feeling began to lift a little more.

Teddy seemed to be fairing much better than Harry at least. He had spent most of his time huddled up in the corner of the room with Claire and another girl he'd met, laughing loudly and doing heaven knows what, his eyes sparkling an almost inhuman shade of blue.

Harry chewed nervously on his bottom lip as he side-stepped Charlie and Billy who were engaged in a heated argument about bears in the forest (a conversation they had been having in varying volumes all night).

Most of the guests were huddled around the television watching American football. Harry wasn't really sure what the rules of it were because it didn't seem to be anything at all like the Soccer Dudley used to watch.

His shoes were uncomfortably stiff from disuse and the tag of his coat was rubbing against the base of his neck. The stubbornly determined part inside of him that resolutely wasn't tolerating his attempt at anti-sociality said that perhaps interaction would help him handle the anxiety that was slowly beginning to bubble over inside of him. He was halfway across the room, almost at the couch where a fair few of the party guests were crowded around the television when Emily burst into the open area and exclaimed "Seth's going to be here any second. Everyone, hiding places!"

He looked like a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide and shoulders tensed as the general population hurried past him. Everyone seemed to know, or at least have a vague idea of where they were going to hide (except Billy who was arguing with Jacob and Charlie about where exactly he _could_ hide) and Harry had no idea at all where he was going to go.

"Seth cubbing, Seth cubbing!" Claire shouted wildly as she ran through the lounge area and up to Quil who was comically crouching behind a desk chair that was _much_ too small for him to be fully covered by. She almost bowled him over in her haste and grabbed onto the edge of his shirt to tug wildly. "Up, up!"

Harry noted amusedly that Seth had a relatively happy expression at being used as Claire's personal carrier compared to Sam who had radiated mistreatment yesterday upon exposure to the same behaviour.

To Harry's dismay, Teddy ran over only a few moments after with the same sugar-induced enthusiasm, his eyes a swirling dark blue, and latched himself onto Harry's leg shouting, "Up, _up_!"

Teddy was slowly beginning to become louder and more playful the longer he spent with Claire (and Harry was unable to tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing). He sighed and lifted Teddy into his arms as he glanced around the room at the actual problem at hand.

"Harry, where are we going to hide?"

Harry hummed as he interestedly watched Brady fold himself up and slide underneath the couch. It was the strangest thing he'd seen in quite a long time because the boy practically disappeared into a gap that was only a few inches big.

"Where do you think we should hide, Ted?"

Teddy stuck a finger onto his bottom lip as his eyes searched around, before his little arm shot out with a frightening speed past Harry's head that made him flinch unconsciously.

"There!" he proclaimed happily, a brown glint to his eyes that made Harry want to groan in apprehension as he looked towards the back of the room where Teddy was happily pointing and bouncing in excitement.

"Are you ... sure you want to hide there? What about with Claire, over there ..." he looked over to where Claire was, complaining loudly at being sandwiched between Quil and Sam, and there was absolutely no room at all where they could squish in and hide.

Teddy shook his head slowly and gripped Harry's face to turn it away from Claire and towards the large group at the back that Harry hadn't met nor interacted with all night.

"I want to hide with Ren'may!"

Of course - the other little girl he was playing with before was hiding over there. Naturally she was probably Teddy's best friend, despite the fact that they'd only known one another for an hour at most. Children amazed him, they _really_ did.

"Uh ..." he began, trying to think of any way possible to deter Teddy from that particular spot, but for the life of him, he couldn't think of anything at all. Give him the Philosopher's stone to locate or the Chamber of Secrets to open and unending ideas and alternative choices would just pour right out of him. Teddy with his mind stubbornly made up, though, and Harry could do nothing much but become a puddle of acquiescing goo. "Yeah, alright. Lets go hide with them."

His steps were slow with trepidation as he approached the couch that the large group was crouched behind with unnatural ease; like tetris blocks all folded up neat and perfect next to each other. What made it significantly worse was that no-one noticed him until he was practically right behind them and when he cleared his throat to gather attention, at least one of them flinched at his sudden appearance.

"Do you mind if we hide with you?" he asked quickly, before he became too nervous to even say _anything_. Teddy squirmed in his grip to be let down and immediately flung himself towards the large group of people. Harry watched, horrified, as Teddy shoved legs and arms out of the way, disrupting the perfectly assembled puzzle of limbs to crawl his way over to the little girl who was sandwiched between two people on the other side.

"I'm _really_ sorry - Teddy that's_ rude_."

Teddy ignored him completely and continued his trek through the limbs to reach his friend and all Harry could do was sigh and crouch down onto his knees to hide with them, "I'm _really_ sorry about Teddy - he's uh ... very _determined_."

He scratched at the back of his head in embarrassment. "I'm Harry, by the way."

The lights were off by now, had been off since just after Emily had relayed Seth's nearing, so it was hard to make out too much detail in their faces, but he was pretty sure the man nearest him was smiling.

"Carlisle," he introduced, held a hand out that Harry resolutely shook, wincing at the firmness of the grip (because really, was _everyone_ going to break his hand with their handshake?).

"Hello," the woman squished beside Carlisle said, "I'm Esme, it's nice to meet you."

Harry nodded with a smile that he hoped conveyed the same sentiment and reached across to shake her hand, sighed pleasantly when his hand _wasn't_ crushed to death.

"Ruh-_nes_-may," he heard the little girl whispering from down the couch, followed by Teddy's happy "Rain-may!"

Harry poked his head around the corner of the furniture to see if anything interesting was happening, but all he could see was Emily eagerly standing behind the front door and the edge of Embry's foot poking out behind the kitchen counter. Behind him he could hear urgent whispering, but it was hurried and quiet to a level that not even Harry, a seasoned veteran at eavesdropping, could overhear.

"Um ... so you're related to Seth?"

It was an idiotic thing to ask because not only were they obviously _not_ related, but Harry was also pretty sure they didn't _care_ about his pathetic attempt at small talk, and also pretty _sure_ that he was potentially ruining Seth's surprise party by talking. Curiosity was hard to crush, though. He'd learned that particular lesson in varying depths over the past ten years.

Carlisle took a few seconds to respond, possibly out of shock that Harry was actually asking at such an inappropriate time.

"No, actually - family friends."

Harry hummed and shoved his fringe out of his eyes. It was getting just a bit too long in the front, overgrown to the point that it stabbed into his eyelids every now and then. He was reluctant to cut it though - the extra weight of having it longer made it neater, weighed the top of it down so that it wasn't quite as birds-nest-esque.

Carlisle's hair was trimmed to absolute perfection and Harry couldn't help but let his eyes slide up to stare at it. Every piece of hair was as perfectly smoothed back as the rest, not a single piece out of place.

Harry opened his mouth to ask another question, but the sound of knocking had him halting with a frown. Carlisle held a finger up to his lips and Harry winced a little sheepishly at that and shoved his fringe out of his eyes again.

The lights were flicked on in the next second and Harry struggled his way into a standing position to shout "Surprise!" with everyone else. The look on Seth's face was priceless and made the half hour of artificial smiles and too many handshakes well worth it.

"Wow!" Seth exclaimed as he turned to Emily and pulled her into a tight hug, "I can't believe you did this!"

"Hey!" his sister cried indignantly, "it was _my_ idea."

"Yeah, yeah Leah, thank you _too_," Seth cooed and pulled her into a hug.

Harry noticed the shift in dynamics the moment Seth arrived and spent a solid portion of the night marveling over it. He squirmed slightly on the couch he was occupying to seek a cozier position. The ice in his glass of water clinked around, held aloft as Harry shifted his attention from his surroundings to his own thoughts. The party noises drifted away slowly, died down to a small echo in the back of his mind as he processed things.

Carlisle and Esme, Harry had learned throughout the course of the night, were the adoptive parents of 5 children. Their oldest son had married Charlie Swan's daughter and together they'd had one daughter, Renesmee. That knowledge only served to confuse him more, though, because the Cullens all looked _alike_. Jasper and Rosalie were apparently twins, but that didn't really help explain it because they all had exactly the same shade of golden brown eyes.

A shade that Teddy had been unconsciously emulating all night so far. Harry didn't think that anyone had really noticed, but it would be easily rationalised if anyone had brought it up. Children's eyes were supposed to constantly be changing when they were little or something. It was his hair that was the _real _problem. Since they'd arrived, it had grown 3 shades darker and 3 inches _longer_ until he and Jasper had nearly the same hairstyle.

It was accidental and out of Teddy's control so Harry wasn't going to discipline him for it - that would send the wrong message and Harry definitely didn't want Teddy to feel as though his gift was something ... abnormal. Another inch longer or shade darker, though, and Harry was going to have to prepare himself to tell Teddy to put it back to how it was before.

The Cullens, though, had become much more social after Seth's arrival. Renesmee stuck to him like a shadow, Edward and Bella fluttered around Charlie and Billy, and Emmett had single-handedly started a competition of strength between all of the boys that had lasted the better part of an hour.

Harry was being his typical reclusive self and hadn't left the couch nor said a word since shortly after saying happy birthday to Seth. It wasn't as though he didn't _try _to be more social, either, because he had. The conversational topic floating around was baseball, though, so Harry had given up on that almost immediately.

He was roused from his thoughts suddenly by a shift in the couch, the cushion puffing up slightly so that he was an inch or so higher than he was just a second ago. The ice in his glass had melted and the condensation had splattered down the ridges of his fingers. He grimaced at it and turned, albeit a little distractedly, to see who had sat down.

"Hey," Jacob said with a small wave, his eyes lingering a little longer than comfortable on Harry's hand before flickering to meet his eyes.

Harry cleared his throat (and his initial panic) and placed his glass carefully on a coaster. "Hello."

The air was thick with discomfort, the awkwardness almost tangible in it's force. Harry racked his brain for anything at all to talk about but it was like fishing for a whale in a puddle.

"Uh .. do you want a biscuit? They're really good."

"Sure," Harry accepted, reached across to pull one off the plate. It _was_ a good biscuit - certainly nothing like the food at Hogwarts but _good _nonetheless. Eating also posed an opportunity to _not talk_ so that was good also.

"So the uh ... the weather's been nice lately."

Harry quirked a brow and hummed, took a moment to actually process that Jacob was talking about _the weather_. It made him laugh slightly around his mouthful of chocolate chips.

At Jacob's stricken look, Harry couldn't help but apologize and cleared his throat to disperse the unease that was beginning to manifest between them. "I agree, it has been nice lately. I've been warned that storms are imminent this time of the year, however."

Jacob looked almost frozen in place for a moment. Harry wondered if he'd said something odd. It had been happening quite frequently since he'd moved, because words seemed to mean different things in America then they did in Britain. He was about to open his mouth and ask if that was the case when Jacob responded, an odd mixture of elation and confusion on his face.

"No tornadoes, at least."

Harry hummed in agreeance and bit the end of his nail to occupy his mouth. They sat in relative silence as the party behind them continued, a bubble of tense awkwardness surrounding them that apparently none of the other guests were hindered by at all. It almost reminded Harry of when Ron had slipped into his carriage on the Hogwarts express their first year - only Jacob was stiff and stumbling where Ron had just been impolitic and forward.

"So how long are you going to be in America for?"

Harry fiddled with the fraying strings of his coat and reached forward for his drink. It was becoming room temperature the longer it sat there and did nothing to relieve his dry throat. He drummed his fingers against the side of the glass agitatedly.

"Well I'd like to think it's a pretty permanent thing. I'd hate to have misinterpreted the visa papers and actually be an illegal immigrant. That would ruin my plans to get a haircut next week."

Harry saw off to the corner of his vision as the sides of Jacob's mouth lifted in a sort of smirk that Harry struggled to keep from appearing on his own face, hidden partially by the glass plastered to his lips.

"That would definitely suck. It's a good thing we have a pretty incompetent government then. Unless you have plans to mass-murder or bomb a shopping centre, I think you'll probably be okay." Jacob gave Harry a tentative smile and relaxed back against the couch. Harry could feel the shift in the atmosphere. It was no longer as stifling and had developed into _almost_-comfortable.

It was nice, in an obscure sort of way. Though awkward in their lack of familiarity, it felt more like sailing into unknown waters rather than diving headfirst into the deep-end (as much of his preceding conversation that night had felt). "Definitely can't be as bad as the _British_ government. Did you know they allowed a murderer to .. er - work for them? He was allowed to call the shots and all."

Jacob _certainly_ didn't need to know that it wasn't necessarily the _government_ so much as the _ministry of magic_, and that it wasn't actually a _murderer_ so much as a _psychotic wizard_. Those were things that Harry was determined not to share (least of all in their first meeting). Besides, obliviators were always cranky when they had to be called out so it was probably best that he keep absolutely everything a secret.

But one little vague joke wasn't going to hurt, he rationalised.

"Seriously?" Jacob's eyes were wide but still held a glint of amusement, "That's crazy!"

"Quite," Harry agreed, a grin stretching muscles in his face that hadn't been properly exercised in a while.

The silence that developed this time was anything _but_ awkward, Harry thought. Their initial contact earlier in the night had been maladroit and fleeting but Harry was willing to overlook that in favor of a growing friendship.

"Do you like it here so far?"

Harry stuck his lip out in thought. America was comparatively better than Britain, or at least, his life _in_ Britain. He and Teddy had been living in Grimmauld place, which seemed to just about repel any form of hygiene. It didn't help that the house held so many memories of the past that simply eating dinner in the main dining room at the large table was enough to slowly crumble his mental resolve from the inside out.

Though he hadn't spent much time sleeping in their new house, and the locals were difficult to understand, America was shaping up to be much better for them both overall.

"There seems to be an abundance of spiders here, _that's_ for sure," he answered instead, unwilling to vocalise how he actually _was_ feeling about the whole move. A stranger probably wasn't the best choice for pseudo-counselor.

"Ah, so you moved into one of those ridiculously large, old houses?" At Harry's nod, Jacob continued with a knowing look, "That means you live up west. All of the older houses are up there. I guess that makes us almost neighbors."

"I guess it does," he agreed.

"Have you visited the beach or the forest yet?"

"Are those _really_ the only two attractions out here to see?" Harry asked, bemused that Emily's words from yesterday were actually true.

"Well they're the only_ interesting _things to see. The beach is a bit shitty on account of all the wind lately but it's never really hot here so it's about as good as it's getting. You surf?"

Harry grimaced, "Surf? You mean face certain death in sub-zero waters on a piece of plastic?"

"I'm going to take that as a ... no?"

Harry snickered and nodded and they easily developed into a steady conversation that lasted the better part of an hour. When Emily came over and interrupted their conversation about the merit of cars (in Harry's opinion they were ridiculously confusing and in Jacob's opinion, a godsend) to inform them that the cake was being cut, Harry was feeling a little surer of himself.

At the end of the night when Harry exchanged phone numbers with Jacob, promises of sight-seeing in the not-too-distant future, Harry was pretty sure he had the goofiest looking smile on his face. It was proven to be true when even Teddy commented on it, a sloppy "Harry you look like Ron when Ha'my makes him a bacon sandwich!"

A glance in the rear-vision mirror gave that observation credibility. It also served to remind Harry that Teddy had cake absolutely everywhere, from his chubby cheeks to the crease of his elbow.

"Did you have fun tonight Ted?"

Teddy giggled loudly as he pulled his seat belt down and clicked it in place, "Rens-may showed me what the forest looked like and it was _so_ pretty! I've never _seen_ a forest before. Did you know that _bears_ and _owls_ and _lizards_ live in the forest?"

Harry smiled indulgently as he shifted the car into gear, "Really? I had no idea, Ted. Well I'm glad you had fun. We'll have to arrange to see Claire and Renesmee again so that you can all play."

If Teddy's squeal was anything to go by, the prospect of a play-date was incredibly exciting.

"Lets go home and get you cleaned up first, though."

The road was sparsely lit but that didn't bother Harry - darkness was neither scary nor frightening to him anymore. Teddy didn't feel the same way, though, because he whinged and complained about the state of visibility with every second he could.

And though Harry would never admit it to anyone else, he felt a tiny tingle of anxiety grip his spine when the car's motor rattled quietly, slowly developing into a loud thumping noise with every extra metre traveled.

When the car began to slow down despite Harry's foot pressed hard to the ground on the pedal, Harry really began to worry.

Just after the motor conked out and died, though, was when he remembered _why_ he hated muggle motor vehicles.

They were unreliable and Harry had _no_ idea how to fix them.

* * *

_Author's note: Hi guys! A new update, and a longer one too to make up for how much I suck! Once again, I'm not sure if you realised but I really, really suck at dialogue. I tried, I really did, but it's still a bit of a fail. I'm going to try and get better, I promise! Anyway, leave a review and tell me what y'all thought or ask me any questions you have._

_A big thankyou to everyone who reviewed the last chapter despite how pathetic it was!_

_An extra, extra special thankyou to White-D and Yuval25! Your comments made my week - my month even!_

_ elvesnightren & BlueJay15: I hope this chapter answers your question! I guess I decided to tone down his metamorphmagi abilities a bit but I'll go into that in more detail in later chapters._

_Thanks for reading!_


	6. Chapter 6

Harry'd had a thing recently for dramatization. He wasn't really sure where it had grown from (although they _had_ bought a television a few nights before and he _had_ been watching a lot of Days of Our Lives) but it'd managed to dig its way into his mind and was beginning to affect every little motion he made. For instance, as he brought his hand down quickly, palm facing the window, steering wheel the prime target, he thought that he could faintly hear the melody of Beethoven's first symphony, fourth movement dramatizing the whole action.

It was in the aftermath of the attack, a throbbing pain shooting from the side of his palm into his elbow, that he wondered if maybe he had inherited his uncle's sense of violence towards cars. He also acknowledged that _maybe_ beating the shit out of his car wasn't really a step towards productivity but rather a leap into the sludgy waters of counter-productivity.

Still, it served to alleviate some of the frustration that had been growing the preceding half an hour that they'd been stationary for. Even if it _did_ encourage a new barrage if whinging from Teddy. It wasn't unusual though - Teddy had been complaining for an uncomfortably long stretch of time (that is, since the exact moment that the motor had fizzled out and Harry had declared them broken down), the same repetitive "Harry we're _lost._ We'll be stuck here _forever_!" and "No more _toys_ or_ playgrounds_ or _ice_ _cream_ ever again!"

Harry's responses were equally as repetitive, an eloquent "We'll be fine," that seemed to travel right over Teddy's head each time it was verbalized. If anything, the words seem to inspire a new level of exuberance in Teddy, and Harry was beginning to wonder if the hyperactivity was a product of all the sugar he'd eaten with Claire and Renesmee or just his own 5 year old boundless energy.

He jiggled the keys in the ignition again, even though he was pretty sure that the fourth time _wasn't _a charm, and pondered the actual use of cars. Certainly not a reliable means of transport, so he decided that cars were either a deadly weapon, or just a moving, metal _coffin_.

The car made the same off-sounding _rattle rattle_ and gave a low growl, almost like the sound a dog makes right before it's about to vomit, before it descended into complete silence. Not even Teddy broke the silence, which was surprising in itself (because Teddy was _never_ silent) but Harry was thankful for it because it gave him a second to really process what it was that he was going to do next.

He tried the keys a fifth time just to make _sure_ that he'd completely _screwed_ the motor of the car and then glumly wondered why it was that he was so inept at anything muggle lately. It was ridiculous because he grew up in a muggle household for half his life and that he couldn't do a simple task like driving properly was frankly frightening - Harry'd seen much less intelligent people than himself do it and it really _shouldn't _have been as difficult as it was.

"Harry it's _broken_," Teddy announced pointedly, hands clasped over his cheeks, blue eyes wide, "you _broke _it!"

Harry nodded and repeated dumbly, "I broke it. It's _broken_."

Teddy fervently nodded, head bobbing quickly, "But _I _know how to fix it."

Harry quirked a brow in Teddy's direction, a smile flickering across his face. "Oh? How do you fix it then, Ted?"

"It's _easy_, Harry. I saw Ron fix a car once. I _saw_ it. You just have to .. have to .. Yeah, you just point your wand at it and say _report-off_!"

Teddy was bouncing more excitedly now, as though he'd just solved the greatest math problem in all of history, or he'd just managed to find a cure for cancer. It kind of made Harry forget about the fact that they were on some godforsaken stretch of road in the middle of nowhere in a broken down _deathtrap_. Teddy's excitement was also kind of contagious and Harry was already beginning to feel some of the frustration seeping away, leaving the beginnings of a buzz in it's wake.

"You _saw_ Ron do it, did you?"

Teddy hummed a little and looked down at his fingers. He counted them one by one with his brows creased, then stuck both his hands up, 9 fingers splayed, "I saw it! It was _4_ weeks ago at his house. He _fixed_ it!"

"We should give it a try then, shouldn't we?" Harry asked, grinning.

"Yeah!" Teddy exclaimed excitedly.

Harry pulled his wand out of his coat pocket and held it securely in his grip, "So I just point it and say-"

"Repar-to!"

"Repar-to?" Harry repeated, "Wasn't it report-off?"

Teddy frowned to himself and his eyes took on this misty quality. A second later, they refocused and he turned to Harry happily. "Yeah!"

Harry chuckled and nodded and thought _hey, why not?_ He'd exhausted every other option he could think of so far (which included talking to the car and asking _nicely_ that it stop ruining his night) so maybe magic was an option that needed to be seriously considered.

Harry didn't _really_ believe that Ron had actually been able to fix his dad's old car with _repairo_, though. It seemed unlikely, and yet he wanted to believe that it was true, if only because he had no other option to funnel any hope into. His phone was in his pocket, about as useful as a paperweight, and he had unfortunately left his degree in mechanics at home in the desk that also held his doctorate in medicine and award for ultimate world fighting champion, so yeah, magic it was.

"Alright," he said finally, "let's try it then."

Teddy followed him out of the car, eager to see just how well his apparently brilliant plan was going to transpire. He had a giddy bounce to his step, bright eyes carefully watching.

Harry lifted the hood of the car and squinted at all the finicky bits of machinery tucked away and looking down at it all just felt like what he imagined a lesson in Arithmancy would feel like (confusing as hell, practically in another language, _more _confusion, and then dejected resignation).

"What _is_ that?" he murmured to himself and leaned forwards, carefully inspecting a site in the motor from which steam was quickly erupting. He determined, with his very limited knowledge of cars and machines and _motors_ that whatever he was looking at was probably the cause of his misfortune.

"That's called a _mufflower_," Teddy explained, chest puffed out in self pride as he educated Harry, "it's the part of the car that makes it go _fast_."

"Oh," Harry took a small step back and shook his head a little in amusement, "how _smart_ of you, Ted. I didn't know you liked cars so much."

"I _love_ cars!" Teddy pointed a finger towards the trash heap they had once _called_ a car, but would henceforth label a _failure_, "except this one is a little," he wrinkled his nose, "bad."

"I agree," Harry took another precautionary step back and pulled Teddy over to stand slightly behind him, lest the car explode and hit them both with fiery debris' of _death_, "this one _is _bad. We'll have to find a new one, I think."

"Ooh!" Teddy squealed, "I want to help pick!"

Harry aimed his wand carefully and made the familiar patterns with it as he said "_Repairo." _The tingle of magic was soothing, especially when he'd not actually used any in quite a few months (not because he hadn't wanted to, but because there had been no need for it).

It wasn't incredibly dark outside either, although the tip of the sun was almost completely out of visibility range, but Harry's eyes had adjusted well enough in the almost-dark to see the exact moment when his plan _didn't_ go as well as he had planned.

Contrary to what he had imagined (the motor ceasing all steaming and coming out peachy-keen), magic and motor vehicles apparently weren't a very good match.

"No, no, _no_," he cursed under his breath and tried to stem the apparent evacuation of all liquid present in the car by shoving his hands into it. And yeah, it was a pretty stupid idea, especially when he realised that he'd destroyed the expensive shirt that Hermione bought him last year for his birthday, but Harry had never been very good at letting bad things happen without his intervention.

Maybe in this case his interference was malignant (and probably just served to make the car destroy itself faster) but Harry had never been the type of person to do anything by halves.

They eventually shuffled back over to the car and instead of sitting inside of it (because Harry'd _read_ stuff about cars and carbon monoxide and he didn't want to take _that_ chance. People _die_ from carbon monoxide) they sat on the bonnet of the trunk.

Despite everything, Harry couldn't help but think that it was actually a pretty night tonight. The stars were all out, sparkling brightly above them, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky to block any of them from view.

"Harry, what's that star called?" Teddy asked. He had one arm outstretched, pointed towards a mess of stars that could have really been anything. Harry remembered that he had studied astronomy once (or maybe more than once) but he was pretty sure he wasn't ever any good at it, so his knowledge of stars and constellations was fairly limited.

He did remember something, though. He remembered it being said briefly, possibly in passing (but by whom, he couldn't be certain) but he felt that it was necessary to voice out loud, even if Teddy probably wouldn't understand it for a very long time.

Even if Harry himself hardly understood it.

He took a deep breath and started to tap out a rhythm on his jeans with the pads of his fingers. It was a lullaby that he vaguely recalled singing to Teddy one night when he was just a baby and refused to sleep. His breath fogged out in front of him a little, only just visible in the fading light of day.

"Someone very smart once told me that every star in the night sky represents a guardian angel," He said slowly. "They shine bright when it is dark so that you are always able to see where you are and where you are going. And if you squint _really_ closely, you might even see one _wink_ at you."

So the last part may have been made up, and the rest was _probably_ not how it was told to him, but it rather fit that moment well he thought, especially when his intended audience was only five years old and the original wording was much too confusing for a five year old to understand.

"_Wow_," Teddy exclaimed and peered up closely at the sky, "but why?"

"Hmm?"

"_Why_ are they up there and not down here? Wouldn't angels be more helpful down here?"

Harry swallowed and tapped a faster tempo on his jeans as he pondered his response. The car was still fizzling louder than ever but the sound of the wind rustling past them was sort of drowning it out a bit. It was soothing in a morose way.

"They can see everything up there."

"But how can they _help_ if they're so high up?"

Harry should've guessed that the conversation would have gone this way. He ruffled Teddy's hair and jumped off the car. His shirt was stuck in a disgusting way to the skin of his abdomen, sticky and smelly against his stomach.

"They're _special_, that's why."

Teddy followed after Harry, an awkward scramble that resulted in Harry just lifting him down. They took a few steps away from the car and stood back to watch the steam rise into the atmosphere.

"Do you think the angels can see us now?"

"Of course they can," Harry replied right away as he reached down to slip his hand into Teddy's securely. He gave it a little squeeze as Teddy continued to stare off up into the stars.

"Is ..." Teddy began uncertainly. Harry didn't push him, didn't want to stop his train of thought before it was fully developed. He wanted Teddy to finish the question on his own, an inlking about where it was heading in the back of his mind. "Do you think mummy and daddy are up there?"

Harry gripped Teddy's hand a little tighter and really looked down at Teddy. Time seemed to have flown by, because it felt like it was only yesterday that Teddy was taking his first steps, little fingers grabbing onto the scruffy edge of the couch that he and Sirius once sat upon to ponder the meaning of life (although it had _actually_ been Mrs. Weasley's cooking that they had been talking about, but it had served a metaphorical purpose too).

Teddy was almost 6 years old (kind of) and was becoming more intelligent by the day. Harry didn't doubt that one day Teddy would be far smarter than he ever was (heck, maybe than Hermione was) and the reality that Teddy was actually growing up began to really hit him.

"I have no doubt about it," he half-whispered, staring up towards the sky, wondering exactly which star he should be thanking for being given the chance to live this life and watch Teddy's own life unfold before him. There are too many stars to thank, though, that if he were even _able _to pin-point which one was which, he'd have to spend hours and hours thanking them. And even then it wouldn't convey enough gratitude. Harry twisted slightly on the spot, Teddy's hand firmly encased within his own and together they disapparated with a loud _crack_ that permeated the cold night air and echoed around the dull forest.

_o.o.o.o_

"You have car lube all down the front of you."

"Oh?" Harry looked down and yeah, he did have car lube _all_ down the front of him. It'd soaked through his shirt and felt slimy against his stomach (and he was ashamed to say that he had expected it to just _dry_ so he hadn't bothered changing out of it last night before collapsing into bed). "It appears I do. Does it suit me well?"

Harry flicked his hair out of his eyes as he stirred hot water into both his and Jacob's mugs, suddenly feeling self conscious now that he knew Jacob was paying attention to what he looked like.

"_Sleep_ suits you well."

"Oh." Harry frowned down at his mug as he watched the last crystals of sugar dissolve into the hot liquid. He added another spoonful of sugar and gave it a swirl. "I guess that's good. I look like sleep a lot."

Wait. He paused his ministrations and blinked slowly to himself.

Was that even proper english? "I mean," he began, feeling almost as eloquent as Ron when Hermione asks him why his underwear was flung across the roof of the house, "Uh. Thanks? Sorry you didn't catch me at a - a better time. We got home late last night so I'm not exactly um. Clean."

Jacob waved him off as he took a large gulp of his scalding hot coffee. Harry was peering close enough at him that he could see the tiniest tear well up in his eyes that signified he had in fact burnt his tongue. It eased his battered self esteem a little.

"I'm sorry that I came over so early," Jacob started, "but I saw your car ditched over on the side of one of the back roads. It - Um. I - I was worried, so I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Harry mentally noted that he really needed to get his car situation sorted out. His phone was still shoved into his coat pocket, slumped messily on the ground beside the front door, so his first mission was going to be to charge it. Well, after he completed the _don't make an ass of yourself in front of Jacob_ mission. One that he was thus far royally screwing up.

"Right. Yeah, sorry about that - I didn't mean to worry anyone. It just carked it last night so we walked back and left the thing there."

"Carked it?" Jacob repeats, and the words sounded so odd with an American accent that Harry choked slightly on his coffee at their utterance.

"Sorry - I mean _died._ I keep forgetting to drop all of the erm _weird_ words from my vocabulary."

"No," Jacob said, a smile ghosting over his face that he hid behind his mug, "I like your vocabulary. Your British words sound so ... _British_."

Harry chuckled, slightly light headed and almost _certainly_ red-faced. He ducked his head in a nod, "Perhaps I'll teach you some British slang some time. That is, if you'll return the favour..?"

Jacob smirked and leaned back in his chair a little (although the chair was _quite_ old and Harry was pretty sure that Jacob knew it, so he was kind of just letting his head fall back a little bit, but it had the desired affect) and gave Harry a _look_.

"Want to learn the local lingo, huh?"

Harry gave a one armed shrug and determinedly looked away, "I suppose. Can't hurt, can it? Otherwise I'm just going to be flailing in the deep end until I learn to swim or uh ... _drown_."

"Well, I know a really _quick_ way that you can learn how to speak all _American-like_," Jacob told him, and then leaned forward on the table, as though he was about to share some big, conspiratorial secret. Harry leaned over in trepidation and braced both his hands on the sides of his mug.

"H-how?"

Jacob looked to the left, and then to the right, and then leaned forward a bit more, eyes on Harry. It was slightly unnerving but also exhilarating in a way that Harry found he quite liked. Jacob smelled like the forest and the _beach_ and like a _really_ sunny day and Harry just wanted to sit there and soak it all up.

"It's called _television_."

Harry huffed as he pulled back from the table and took a mouthful of coffee to avoid saying anything. It was much too hot still, though, so he replaced it on the table. "I _do_ watch a lot of television, _actually_."

The way Jacob widened his eyes and opened his mouth led Harry to believe that he looked the type that didn't watch much television. Odd. He was pretty sure he didn't look like the reclusive sit-and-read type of person (ditching the glasses was supposed to have _cured_ him of that!).

"Do you know what _that_ means then?"

Harry kind of didn't want to ask. Jacob had only been there a half hour tops, and so far Harry thought that he'd possibly had two small heart attacks in that time. He also thought that most of the blood had left his extremities and traveled right to his face. He _really_ didn't want to answer Jacob's question, but then a part of him (a rather _loud_ part of him at that moment) was screaming that he _really_ wanted to know what Jacob was about to say.

"W-what?" he asked, and mentally hit himself for stuttering. He was _not_ some pathetic teenage girl.

He was _not_.

"Movie marathon. Here. We're going to watch star wars and back to the future and lord of the _fucking_ rings."

It occurred to Harry later that day as he was recalling this conversation that Jacob was a massive _geek_ (and Harry couldn't help but smile at that thought).

Jacob had this perfect smile, too. Each tooth was this perfect shade of pearly _white_ and each tooth was as perfect as it's neighbor. Harry, on the other hand, had this little two mil gap between his two top canines. He wondered if maybe it was too late to get anything done about it (and then later remembered that he was a _wizard_ and wizards didn't have perfect teeth because they employed _dentists_). He stuck his tongue into the gap as he watched Jacob grin with his _perfect_ teeth.

Harry laughed too, because Jacob looked so happy that he couldn't _not_ laugh. He was also pretty excited about hanging out with Jacob. He didn't want to think too much about the latter reason, though.

"Oh, so how come your car crapped out on you?"

Secretly Harry was pretty thankful for the change in conversation, even if it did mean he had to bumble his way through explaining last night to Jacob.

"Uh. Well," he scratched at the back of his head, "I don't really know, actually. We were just driving and ... then it just stopped working."

Jacob blinked, "Right. Elaborate a little maybe?"

Harry looked up slightly at the sound of Teddy jumping around. He'd been doing it all morning but Harry hadn't really paid much attention to it (the constant "Fighter pilot! Commander, in position! Captain Teddy to the _rescue_!" reassured Harry that there was nothing to actually worry about). Now, though, he wanted to let his attention drift to it (and secretly wanted Jacob to forget about talking to Harry and inquire about Teddy instead, because Teddy was always easy to talk about).

"Uh," he scratched at his forehead and took another sip of his coffee. It was at the perfect temperature now, easily drinkable and calming, in a way. "I dunno," Harry said, "it just _stopped_ all of a sudden. I mean - not all of a _sudden_ per se but - well this light started flashing on the dash and then the car just slowed right down to a stop."

Jacob nodded, "Uh huh. And then what happened?"

Harry _really_ didn't want to continue explaining his failure of epic proportions to Jacob. Instead, he _really_ wanted to change his clothes. And maybe shower. He readjusted himself in his chair and felt the slimy slide of his shirt against his skin and it just made his skin _crawl_. He had car lube _all_ down the front of him, and it was just completely unfair that he had to be stuck in this sort of situation.

It was as though fate had imposed a deal upon him in which any happiness he experienced should be returned twice fold in the form of _un_happiness.

Last night's party was returned with his car breaking down, for instance.

This morning's visit was apparently being returned with car-lubrication-shirt and half-asleep conversation that only served to assist the festering of his awkward socially inept _wound_ that caused the inability to properly hold an actual conversation.

"What do you mean, 'and then what'? I pulled over and we walked home." He answered slowly, considering his own words as he said them.

Jacob quirked a brow at him and leaned back slightly in his chair (or possibly just tilted his head backwards again - Harry was not paying _that_ much attention to Jacob. He was _not_.)

"So you walked _all_ the way back home from there?"

Harry bristled, "I'm not _that_ unfit, thank you."

Those pearly teeth were flashed again - Harry though that he was going to need sunglasses if Jacob was going to be smiling _that_ much because the sun positively _glimmered_ when it hit them. It was simultaneously blinding and dazzling.

"Hey! I've got a lot of _stamina_ I'll have you know!" Harry said and grumbled under his breath afterwards. Jacob murmured something that he didn't quite catch, but began speaking before Harry could question him about it.

"Did you check under the hood? Or call anyone? You should've called Charlie - he's a sucker for broken down vehicles. Nothing better to do with his time most nights," Jacob chuckled.

"Phone was dead," he explained, "and I _did_ look under the hood, but I had no idea what I was looking at. Something was steaming and then. Well," he indicated his shirt, "this happened."

"Sounds like you really wrecked your car," Jacob observed.

"Yes, it appears so."

_Not to mention I tried to fix it with magic_.

He _definitely_ avoided telling Jacob that, though. Harry wasn't quite ready to part with the small town yet (and obliviators were such _arses_ when they had to travel internationally to wipe memories). The town had already managed to dig a way into his heart, climbing over 8 foot high electric fences and breaking down stone barriers he'd spent years erecting to stubbornly build itself a fortress in one of the darkest corners of his heart. Harry thought that maybe growing attached to things so quickly wasn't quite _normal_. Then again, when had Harry ever done anything the _normal_ way?

"I can take a look at it if you want," Jacob offered, "see if I can get it going again? I'm pretty good with cars, y'know."

"That would be really good, actually," Harry conceded with a small smile, "I hadn't actually thought through how I was going to get it fixed."

Jacob did this little bow in his chair and rolled his fingers forward in the air, head tilted downwards. Harry blinked slowly at him, confusion bubbling over, until Jacob firmly said "At your service, sir yes sir!"

Harry batted him in the shoulder as he collected their mugs and stacked them into the sink where they would inevitably sit for a solid week before he actually bought dish-washing-detergent. Jacob howled in mock-pain and latched a hand onto the spot Harry had slapped, "You've _broken_ it! Your _stamina_ is just too much!"

Harry hit him harder and snatched the packet of biscuits he'd put out on the table to shove them back into the cupboard and stubbornly ignored the pout that Jacob gave him in return.

_o.o.o.o_

"Dude, you weren't kidding when you said your car had, uh, _carked it_. It looks like someone deliberately gave the engine a beating just to see what would happen," Jacob said, and then gave him this _look_ as though he was considering whether Harry could've done something like that.

"Well _I_ certainly didn't!" Harry shot back, arms crossed over his chest indignantly. He shoved them back into his pockets with a grumble though when he remembered that technically he _had_ done just what Jacob had said - although instead of attacking it with a crow bar or a hammer or something, he'd tried to use _magic_ on it.

He could practically _hear_ the lecture that Hermione would undoubtedly give him when she heard about it and it made his head throb painfully. He just wanted his car fixed so that he didn't have to _walk_ everywhere. Harry had spent a whole _year_ literally _on the run_, and in his opinion, he'd fulfilled his life-long quota of exercise.

"Can you ... fix it?" Harry asked impatiently as he craned his neck around to see what it was exactly that Jacob was doing.

"_I _can fix it!" Teddy shouted happily from his seat in the back of Jacob's truck, army-men in hand.

Harry sent him a smile and said "I know you can, Ted, but Jacob wants to try too!"

"_Puh-lease_," Jacob began, eyebrows raised slightly, "do you not know who you're talking to? Of _course_ I can fix it. I just need a few things," he said and walked around to his truck. He pulled a tool box out of the back of it, and then the rest was completely lost on Harry. There was tinkering and twisting and pulling and crashing (that Jacob furiously denied was him making a _mistake_) and things were being moved, others were being shimmied about - Harry couldn't really make much sense of it, nor did he really attempt to _try_ to either.

He eventually retreated back to Jacob's truck and began a round of army fighter pilot with Teddy when he decided that Jacob probably _wouldn't_ require his assistance any time soon (or at all).

An hour later saw Harry still sitting with Teddy, although he'd lost three wars and half of his men had died (or changed sides to fight for Teddy). He had five little men left and he determinedly stood one up on his knee as Teddy initiated the final war with a raucous battle cry.

Teddy's front runner general _Bill_ stepped forward and leaped across the gorge of lost souls (the gap between Harry's knee and Teddy's ankle formerly known as the _back seat_) and landed firmly onto no man's land (Harry's shoe) to lodge an attack. Harry's long distance shooter had the upper hand, though, and easily took him out with a quick jump and _swipe_ of his rifle.

He was unprepared for the sudden ambush that Teddy's two strongest soldiers launched into, though, and he lost two of his best men. Down to three men, he thought sadly. His two lost men fell down into the gorge of lost souls, resting silently with the other victims of war.

"Captain _Teddy_ attack!" Teddy shouted quickly, voice carrying around the whole truck as he leaned forward, favourite army man in hand (it was missing a leg but it had a band-aid wrapped around it and a piece of string - that apparently looked like a renegade bandanna - wrapped around his head) and Harry couldn't respond quickly enough to move his three remaining men out of the way.

He looked on despairingly as his last men fell away, and admitted defeat a fourth time.

He thought, rather spectacularly, that maybe he needed to take up a different hobby - like _reading_ or _knitting_ for heavens sakes, because he had just spent a whole hour playing army men. And now he was actually _sad_ that he lost because those were his _soldiers_ and Teddy had defeated them all without even breaking a sweat.

Teddy was cheering and throwing his army men up in the air (not noticing, of course, that a few of them had landed in the edges of the seat where they would probably be very difficult to retrieve and Teddy would _probably_ forget about them until a week later when he suddenly _must_ have them because his army _wasn't_ going to be complete without them) and Harry couldn't help but cheer along with him.

"I _won_ Harry!" Teddy informed him, face-splitting grin practically _glowing_ in the afternoon sun, "that means you have to buy me _ice cream_, since you lost. It's only _fair_."

Harry nodded with an eye brow quirked, "Oh, of _course_. It's only fair."

"Did someone say something about ice cream?" Jacob said, right beside Harry's ear from the window that he had been half leaning out of, letting the breeze wash over the back of his head.

He made this odd noise in the back of his throat, caught somewhere between a cough and a choke that came out a little like neither, a kind of spluttering groan as he processed his shock. Jacob snickered at his embarrassing display, to his horror.

"Yeah! Harry's going to buy _ice cream_ because he lost The War of Orange Shoe!" Teddy exclaimed as Harry relearned how to breathe again through his lungs and swallow without their interference.

"Is that so?" Jacob turned to Harry with this _smirk_ on his face that Harry just wanted to hit him for.

Harry grumbled when he'd recovered enough to do so without choking on his own tongue and said "Yes, well, poor hand-eye-coordination and all that jazz." He heard the door handle creak and frowned at the sound for a second before he was falling backwards. His heart nose-dived into his stomach for a moment before Jacob caught him and righted him on his feet on the road.

Harry shot him a spiteful glare before realisation dawned on him.

"Wait," he said, hands held up because he needed a second to actually think_, _"_wait_."

"Waiting," Jacob teased.

Harry spun around to his car and lunged towards it, the beginnings of a smile playing over his face. He reached in and twisted the car keys in the ignition and the car roared to life, motor humming happily under the hood.

He turned towards Jacob and crossed his arms over his chest in what he hoped was a cool manner (but really just kind of looked like he was cold and was trying to block the wind) and smiled earnestly.

"I'm amazing, aren't I?" Jacob asked, voice laced with bravado as he waggled his eyebrows at Harry.

Harry acquiesced _this_ time, because Jacob had just fixed his car and just spent a solid few hours with Harry and Teddy doing manual labor even though he had no obligation to (although Harry thought that he probably had nothing better to do all day anyway). It made Harry feel warm inside.

"Yeah, yeah. You're _amazing_." he huffed teasingly, and then let his face fall into a more serious expression. "Thank you, Jacob. I mean it."

They shared a silence between them, filled with varying degrees of facial expressions and un-communicated conversations that Harry thought he understood perfectly. Jacob had this solemn look on his face, but there was a shadow of a smile hiding there and his eyes were still twinkling. Harry was afraid to say anything - afraid to break what appeared to be a perfect moment between them.

The sun was hitting Jacob at this perfect angle and yeah, Harry kind of wanted to step forward and join Jacob in the sunlight. He didn't want to cross that boundary, though - whatever boundary it even _was_. There was a warning hidden in the silence that Harry thought he might be making up, but it felt real all the same in that instant.

"Ice _cre-ea-eam!_" Teddy boomed loudly as he leaped out of the truck and hopped, stepped, _jumped_ his way over to Harry's side. The moment dropped away like a blanket of cold water and when he looked back up again at Jacob, all traces of their silent conversation were gone. It made him feel oddly empty.

"Ice cream," Harry said without any real focus, "yup. Ice cream."

"Ice cream," Teddy repeated, a few octaves higher and a lot more pleased sounding with the words.

"Do you want to come?" he asked Jacob politely.

Jacob took in a deep breath, as though he'd only just zoned into the conversation, and nodded once, twice, before shaking his head.

"Now, I don't know how it is in _America_," Harry began daringly, "but where I'm from, nodding and shaking your head mean opposite things. Is there some secret movement for _maybe_ that I'm not privy to yet?"

Jacob's laugh was like warm honey and melted butter and gooey caramel. Harry wanted to wrap himself up in it (or possibly eat some _ice cream_), so much so that he almost missed Jacob's answer.

"I have to go out, actually." Jacob said, a tinge of regret in his voice, "Seth's decided that for his birthday from me he wants help reorganising his bedroom."

Harry nodded in understanding, "Well that sounds _very_ fun."

"Definitely," Jacob groused, rolling his eyes slightly. "Rain check?"

"I wasn't aware ice cream was so appealing," Harry shook his head a little laughingly but nodded nonetheless, "rain check, then."

Harry opened the door for Teddy to climb into the backseat. When it was shut, he pointed an admonishing finger at the car and said "Behave."

"Hey, um." Jacob said, scratching at the back of his neck, "Might want to get an air freshener for your car."

"Oh?" Harry opened the front door and leaned in a little to smell it. It smelled just like _car_ to him, which was confusing. Maybe cars were meant to smell like something different? His uncle's car used to just smell perpetually of fast food and road rage.

"Yeah. It smells ..." Jacob wrinkled his nose a little, "weird. I dunno. Maybe it's just me. Just get one of those air freshener tree things that hang on the mirror. Trust me."

Confused, Harry just nodded and shrugged, "Alright. If you say so."

"Good." Jacob said, and offered Harry a smile and stuck his hand out, "I look forward to our ice-cream movie night, too. I wasn't kidding about it - It's my new _goal in life_ to Americanize you."

Harry shook Jacob's hand, and even clapped him on the arm when Jacob drew him closer (because he'd seen a few people around town do that and so it seemed the norm). Up close, Jacob smelled like motor oil and musk and _still_ smelled like the sunniest day that ever existed and Harry wanted to soak it all up like a sponge of _pathetic_. He pulled back when his thoughts became too embarrassing to stay in close proximity much longer and headed over towards his car.

"See you around, Harry," Jacob called over his shoulder.

Harry smiled (and then gave his car another sniff because _what_ smelled off about it exactly?) and placed the car into drive. He noticed faintly that there were little fingerprints (and occasional hand prints) all over the windows, but it was probably just from Jacob (or himself; Harry was not exactly a _cleanly_ person) so he made a stop over at the car wash on the way to get ice cream.

He slipped the tiny, pine-tree air freshener over his rear-view mirror with a little smile and leaned in to smell it. It wasn't quite as nice smelling as Jacob was, but he supposed that it would have to do for now.

* * *

_Author's Note: Wheeeew! Y'all will not believe the stresses I went through to write this. A broken hard drive, a broken iPhone, a thousand bucks down the drain and a crap-tonne of exams later and hear y'all go, 6k words. This is my apology for sucking so much. And a preemptive apology for the two weeks it's going to take me to get another chapter out! Exams started last friday but I have a solid two weeks of them starting monday so wish me luck!_

_TL;DR: I'm one of those annoying authors who takes forever to update and has sucky updates when they actually do update. Terribly sorry!_

_Per a request, I'll include a timeline next chapter in the A/N so that y'all can see exactly where this story fits. And, ugh, I'm trying to get better at dialogue. It's like catching a cloud or something though._

_Anyway, I hope y'all like this new chapter._

_Thanks again to everyone who reviewed and favourited and followed and just read my story! _


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